Zagreb Welcomes First English-Language Antiquarian Bookstore

Zagreb's cultural landscape has a new addition with the opening of its first antiquarian bookstore dedicated to English-language books. Situated in the courtyard of the well-known Sedmica cafe, the shop aims to serve the city's growing population of English readers.

Publisher and author Ivan Sršen established the bookstore, which houses around 6,000 titles. Of these, 3,500 are in English, and 2,500 are in Croatian. Sršen drew inspiration from the former Konzor bookstore, where he previously worked and developed his passion for bookselling. The new establishment mirrors Konzor's model by offering a mix of new and used books, with the English titles being second-hand and the Croatian ones new.

Sršen explained that the concept is modeled after similar antiquarian bookstores found in neighboring countries, recognizing English as the current lingua franca of literature. He noted that a significant number of people, particularly young individuals in Zagreb and Croatia, read in English. The bookstore also aims to provide access to titles not readily available elsewhere.

Among the notable items in the collection are a first edition of Louis-Ferdinand Céline's "From Castle to Castle," a first edition of Harold Pinter's "Plays," a 1906 book on Greek philosophy, and "Oliver Twist" from the early 1920s. The selection also includes quality Croatian fiction and non-fiction, along with translated works by popular authors like Kundera, Bernhard, and Murakami.

The stock of English books, numbering between 3,500 and 4,000, was acquired in bulk from Amsterdam, a city historically known as a European book capital. Sršen described a process of evaluating large quantities of books by examining random boxes, a method common among antiquarians and resellers who often have pre-sorted warehouses based on sales data.